Just going. As Mr. Green hurtles into the BALLROOM he sees, on a corner of the distant window seat, Miss Scarlet sitting with her hands in her lap. Ten feet away the Colonel stands with his back to Miss Scarlet and his hands clasped behind his back. Miss Scarlet looks up, the Colonel turns his head: they are waiting for an explanation. Mr. Green cannot speak. His cheeks are aflame, his heart is pounding, he feels light-headed with embarrassment. The Colonel goes to the window, picks up a dark object, turns sharply on his heel, and begins striding toward Mr. Green. The Colonel is going to strike him. The Colonel is going to murder him. Mr. Green cannot move. “I say, Green,” the Colonel says, striding directly up to him. “Forgot your book.” The Colonel thrusts out the book. Mr. Green feels a bursting sensation in his heart; tears of gratitude prickle his eyes. “I am so terribly sorry,” Mr. Green says. “I mean happy, of course. I do hope I haven’t—” “I was just going,” the Colonel remarks.
The black envelope. The black envelope is a little larger than the cards it contains and is open at one of the narrow ends. In the open end is a shallow semicircular notch intended to ease removal of the three hidden cards. On one side of the black envelope appear the words CLUE CARDS, printed in dim silver. On the other side the structure of the envelope is visible: a single sheet of black paper has been folded in such a way that narrow strips overlap the side and bottom; the overlaps are glued in place. Years of use have caused the black envelope to tear at the corners of the open end; minuscule black hairs of paper twist from the splits.
In which the Colonel is thirsty, and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water; and what he finds there. The Colonel feels a slight dryness in his throat after his late exertions and, as he passes the KITCHEN, decides to drink a glass of water before proceeding to the BILLIARD ROOM. When he enters the KITCHEN he sees, in the middle of the room, buxom Mrs. White, standing sideways and holding in one hand a tilted but unspilled glass of water. She is staring straight before her, with her lips slightly parted; her cheeks are wet with tears. Her slumped shoulders, her gleaming cheeks, her loosening braids of hair, her air of desperate disarray, all these form a pleasing foil to her ample well-corseted bosom and handsome high posterior. “Pray forgive me for disturbing you,” remarks the Colonel, and closes the door gently behind him as Mrs. White turns her dazed wet face in his direction. The Colonel makes a quick calculation. There will still be time for a game before dinner.
A sound of shattered glass. The Professor has counted seven tiers of crisscrossing passages, but he is no longer certain of the number because many of the passages dip and climb, attaching themselves to higher and lower tiers without the evidence of steps. The multiplying passages cannot be endless, the Professor reminds himself: that is a delusion born of anxiety. Evidently the builder, or series of builders, desired an impression of extravagance, of freedom, as if a single SECRET PASSAGE moving from one known locus to the next were a form of intolerable constriction, for attempts have been made to disguise or blur the intermingling of passages and create confusion in the unwary wanderer. Passages scrupulously resembling other passages have been introduced, so that the illusion of having returned to familiar ground is continually created, only to be disrupted by a deliberate change in the pattern; passages containing shelves, furniture, and paintings lead suddenly to primitive passages where large rocks lie on the earthen paths and water trickles along the stony walls. It occurs to the Professor that perhaps he has been ceaselessly retracing a small number of cunning passages. Or it may be that he has been following a slowly widening and deepening series of passages, a series that he has far from exhausted, a series that has barely begun. His legs are growing tired, and despite the cool air he is perspiring. He stops for a moment to wipe his eyeglasses, which slip from his fingers to the hard path. He hears a sound of shattered glass. He crouches and pats the ground; grains of moist dirt cling to his fingertips. When he picks up his eyeglasses, he brings them close to his eyes and sees that the lenses are unbroken. He stands up quickly. I am imagining things, he says aloud. You are talking to yourself, he says aloud. His voice is very clear. He puts on his eyeglasses and begins walking briskly. This is not happening, he says aloud. Ahead of him, the path divides in two.
Is it possible? In the mauve dusk Miss Scarlet sits in the corner of the window seat smoothing her crimson dress, black in the twilight, over her knees. The Colonel has escaped through the door. Already the late episode is fading, becoming implausible. Is it likely that she? Is it possible that they? The Colonel, after all, has never seen her. He experiences women solely as a series of banal erotic images; he transforms real flesh into figments of his imagination. The Colonel is a magician: in that dark, unseeing gaze, women vanish. Miss Scarlet cannot have been present at the unlikely scene at the window seat, because the Colonel’s lovemaking is strictly solitary. The thought is somehow bracing. In the violet gloom Miss Scarlet pinches herself on the forearm and gives a little gasp of pain. She looks up suddenly. “Mr. Green?” she asks, straining her eyes. But Mr. Green is no longer there.
Jacob raises his glass. Jacob rolls a three: two short of the DINING ROOM. The game is almost over. He raises his wineglass and says, “Happy birthday, Davey.” David looks down, flushing with pleasure. Marian places a hand on his hand. “Hey. Happy birthday.” David looks up to see her smiling at him; her tired, sorrowful eyes brim with tenderness. Susan pushes back her chair and stands up. She steps around the table, bends over suddenly, and kisses David on the cheekbone. “Happy birthday, David,” she says. He can smell the clean scent of her blouse, mixed with a tang of something else: skin? hair? The kiss was a little high, just under his eye. He hears her sit down. David looks quickly at Susan, at Jacob, at Marian. His sister’s hand is warm on his hand, his cheekbone still feels the pressure of Susan’s lips, his brother’s greeting sings in his ears. He would like to tell them that they can count on him, that he will take care of them, that everything will be all right: Jacob will be famous, Marian will be happy, Susan will marry Jacob, Dad will never die. He knows that the words are extravagant and says them only to himself. “Thank you,” David says. For a moment, it’s as if everything is going to be all right.